The Sun Goes Down
by Tenebrion Factor
Summary: Staring at a certain someone from a distance, Johnny contemplates what to say and how he'll say it.


The Sun Goes Down  
  
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Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Johnny and all other characters mentioned in this story belong to the comic god Jhonen Vasquez, and I don't say that in a creepy stalker fashion. I save that for people who don't appreciate a good stalking, and I believe he probably has his fair share of creepy fans following him home already. And the title is a lyric in a Blink 182 song, Everytime I Look For You, so I give them credit for that even though the song has nothing to do with the story. ~  
  
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He could see her sitting there on the lone bench, all alone, an empty spot beside her beckoning him to sit. The sun melted down into the hills of the horizon, melting pink and orange and a golden yellow into one another; it was a sight he so rarely got to see, had the chance to gaze upon. It was this sight that only added to her radiance.  
  
Biting his lip, Johnny tired to force his legs to move, but they would not; not with all the doubts colliding in his head. What would she do when she saw him? Scream, shriek, faint, run? Any of those were understandable, after what he did..the things he had said. Yes, that was particularly wise of him.  
  
"Immortalizing the moment."  
  
As if. And supposing she did stay, possibly frozen by complete and utter fear for her life? Could she honestly believe that he was truly sorry? That it had all been a mistake? No. Of course not. He had tried many times, imaging to be in her position, and hearing those same words come from an attempted killer in supposed love. He wasn't sure he'd be able to believe it either.  
  
On the bench, she sighed, this love of his life, and he sighed with her, from a distance of course. Johnny had already tried once to apologize, but all it resulted in was more screaming and anger. Hatred, negativity, madness. All these thoughts clouded together in his head, pertaining more to himself that to her. After all, it was he who was insane; he was the one killing and slaughtering as though it were some errand he'd run every day of his life, or for every day that he could remember. And he doubted very much that she heard any type of voice.  
  
Breathing solemnly, he continued to debate the situation. *Should I go up and talk to her and straighten things out? What would I say? How would I say it? How far will she run to escape the things I speak and do, and how long will it take me to catch her?*  
  
Questioning further, he added in thought, * Will that tempting urge come to torment me again?* It was never about killing. Oh yes, he killed, kills, and always will kill, even in his older days, he knew he would still, if it were possible for him to age in any way. Oh yes, he would always kill, and it didn't matter much who it was, so long as the death had some form of meaning to it..sometimes it was just for fun, like those damn door-to-door salesmen and such. They were so fun to destroy because they were so annoying. He always thought of it truly as a public service when he killed their kind.  
  
But this was Devi. The lovely rose born in a world of broken thorns, scratching and clawing to keep themselves alive, drinking and feeding off of everyone else's pain. She deserved so much better than to fall into the disgust he offered, and even though he had thought of this as a reason or excuse as to not go through with speaking to her again, the urge, not unlike his homicidal tendency, to make himself known to her again fought back, and had finally won.  
  
He closed his eyes, wishing he had already gone through with it, but knew that his body remained still, and his legs had remained motionless, and his voice was gone. How he wanted to sleep. Just for a little while at least. Just so he'd dream about her, like he had done before. Sure, he hated sleep with all the negative energy he could muster, the total lack of awareness upon waking up and all. But the dreams..he actually dreamed.about her and this moment.  
  
This moment that wouldn't permit itself to last forever.  
  
No. Not forever. She wouldn't sit there forever, waiting for him to approach unknowingly. The time to strike was then.Johnny made a face. That sounded so cheap, like he wanted to catch her by complete surprise and rape her or something. Never. The moment was to be calm and slow, gentle and soothing..why did that still sound like sex to him? He made another face, and looked back towards her.  
  
She seemed to be shifting uncomfortably on the wood of the bench seat. Perhaps she was nearing her leave. He swallowed something in his throat he hadn't known was there. He had to do it now.  
  
Good, he heard a voice somewhere in his head begin, you've taken the first step. Now take another. He decided this voice was his own; quite a change from other times, when the only voices he heard came from inanimate objects lying around his half-eaten house. In other instances, it became quite lonely.  
  
He felt his feet begin to move freely, guiding his body towards the beautiful woman he so desperately sought after. His cheeks flushed with fear and embarrassment, Goosebumps littered his arms from the thought of not knowing, sweat drizzled down his forehead from everything else. What would he do? What the hell would he do?  
  
A voice called out into the silence, a voice he hadn't expected and didn't know was there. "Devi.."  
  
She turned around in her seat, calm eyes gaining that sudden look of fear he recognized and in that instant, he realized that voice had been his own. He suddenly wished he could take it back.  
  
"J-Johnny..oh God, please, no. Please, not now, please. I beg you." she tried to stand, but her legs betrayed her and she sank to the bench's splintered seat once again. "Oh, Jesus." She appeared to be waiting for the blow, for that knife to come out of nowhere and tear into her flesh, ripping her apart.  
  
He couldn't blame her in the least, but he knew he had to make her see. Calmly, he held out his hands to reveal that he had no weapon to dismantle her with, nor anything that could carry such an item. He had with him nothing for even an emergency, like if he met some asshole on the street. "Devi..Stop, I don't have anything. I just-just came here to talk.with.you."  
  
She didn't seem to believe him in the least, not until she got a good look at his hands, and ordered him to turn around so that she could check the back of his pants that he had a tendency of stashing knives in. He revealed to her that he had nothing of the sort carried with him this time, and she nodded for him to sit.  
  
"Why are you here, Johnny?" Her voice was far from calm and held a sort of resentment, for obvious reasons. "I thought I made it perfectly clear that I hate you." she turned her head towards him, eyes blazing with rage. ".So why do you keep tormenting me!?!  
  
Johnny felt shocked, and rested his body to face her most of the way. "Torment you? Devi, I never had any intention of tormenting you. I never wanted to reduce you to hiding in your apartment, fearing for you life..I never wanted that.." he sighed. "I just wanted you to be happy."  
  
Devi glared. "Happy? Happy!? Was I supposed to be happy when you tried to kill me? Huh? Oh, I'm sorry. I must've gotten my emotions confused. I was under the impression that I should terrified when someone raises a knife at me with the intent to tear me to ribbons, but I see the error of my ways. Thank you for clearing that up, you twisted psychotic bastard!"  
  
Johnny cringed. He knew he deserved it, but that didn't change the fact that it hurt, by a lot. He opened his mouth once to explain, but quickly closed it. What was he doing? This was a mistake. She'd never understand..but he couldn't just stop now. He had to say what he had planned all this time. In all those dreams.  
  
"Devi, please understand.." he gulped. "Then..I wasn't.I mean.I didn't..That wasn't supposed to happen."  
  
"What? Were we supposed to have sex first, Johnny?" Devi spat. "Is that what it was all about? Or were you going to do perverse things to my rotting corpse?"  
  
Johnny raised an eyebrow. "What? No, of course not..what I meant was." he sighed. He needed to stop beating around the bush and just say it. "I didn't want to kill you. I didn't want to hurt you. You were..are the best thing that's ever happened to me..but there were these.obstacles.things I couldn't control. An inward force that haunted and impaired my vision to the world."  
  
It was Devi's turn to raise an eyebrow this time. "What are you talking about?" he voice cracked as she said this, and the tone was hesitant. In her eyes was the small sight of knowing. Johnny inhaled. She knew what he was talking about.  
  
"Voices, Devi..I.I heard - hear - voices." He explained, a little easier than the conversation had started out. "But then.you know what that's like, don't you?"  
  
Devi said nothing; only turned her head away to look at the grass, blowing ever so slightly in the almost non-existent wind. That was all the answer Johnny needed, and he nodded in acknowledgement.  
  
"If you know what its like, then you know..giving in isn't so easy, no matter how much you wanted to stop everything. Everything I tried to do to you..well, really just kill you, I was persuaded into doing by them, and they weren't even mine.."  
  
"Johnny, I-" Devi began but Johnny interrupted, hushing her with a finger against her lips.  
  
He breathed in deeply, trying to remain calm all over. It worked partially, because he didn't start to hyperventilate. But on the inside, he was shivering violently, taking a mental leap forward into the unknown he wasn't sure he could make. "Devi."  
  
Another deep breath, and then another. He had a feeling, good or bad he wasn't sure, but a feeling nonetheless. For the first time in forever and more, he wanted to be held; to hold and be held, by her, this lovely woman sitting before him, looking as unsure as himself. Another breath.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
He winced, half expecting to e smacked, half expecting hear a shriek and a wail of sarcasm and hatred in the form of painful words to be thrown at him. He braced himself, tensing all over.  
  
"Johnny."  
  
"I'm sorry!" the thin man suddenly squealed, throwing his hands up it the air, then slamming then down back down onto the bench. His eyes were wide, holding a sense of a sense of absolute innocence and remorse. He screamed again, clenching his eyes shut, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry ten times over and a million times more!"  
  
Devi blinked, her expression softened. It was so un-Johnny. To scram something as powerful as an apology, over and over again. He seemed so childlike and beautiful, and all over, if felt as if they were meeting for the first time again. A small smile crossed her face and without thinking, her hand reached out and beckoned his chin upwards.  
  
Eyes met eyes.  
  
For an instant, neither could feel the cruelty of the world, their own demonic past actions, the screaming torment of one another. Johnny glanced up quickly, feeling an embrace that seemed so alien, yet so familiar at the same time. Her thing arms draped around his skinny shoulders, and without a second's thought, he returned it. Warmth spilled over his body like soothing water, and he just about melted right then and there.  
  
Releasing one another from their hold, they turned to look at the stars that had relinquished their hiding [laces to the disappeared light and shone ferociously bright. There they sat, under the same sky, looking at the same stars, and for a while, neither of them said a word.  
  
The sun had long since vanished before Devi finally spoke, breaking the silence, "I understand, Johnny. I know what its like, hearing things..or at least, one thing, wanting to give in to the stories they tell you and the promises they speak. But I couldn't do it, Johnny. I couldn't.."  
  
Johnny nodded, for once completely relaxed. "I understand as well, Devi," he answered. "And I'm content with the fact you didn't. I don't want you to turn like me." He smiled. :I just want you to be happy."  
  
Devi smiled back, the expression a cozy one on her pale face. "I want to be happy with you, Johnny. Just give me some time..to." She never finished her sentence; Too fallen in his eyes and him in hers. They leant forward far too slow for the each other to stand it, reenacting a scene played not long ago; before the creature emerged from the wall and the universe supposedly "disappeared, or at itself.; he still wasn't sure what had happened. Nevertheless, they embraced each other yet another time, ready to finish what Johnny had ended far too early.  
  
"Do it and damnation shall eat you whole, Johnny." Devi whispered, grazing his lip with her own.  
  
Johnny pulled back in surprise, but his hands still clung unwillingly to her body. "Wha-what did you.you say?"  
  
"A slave to something, eh? How awkward that it just happens to be a lost love." Devi suddenly began to cackle. Her face had begun to melt and her body shrunk with it. The Devi he had some to love was transforming into something else entirely; a creature he loathed and wanted to destroy.  
  
Johnny was instantly hurled onto his back, expecting to feel soft grass beneath him, but felt only the hard ground, splinters digging into his back. He blinked. Splinters? He shook his head, realizing he was still holding onto Devi, or what used to be the thin woman. She was now nothing more than a mere small, cackling creature he was able to hold in the air with great ease, yet he could not released her.  
  
She was not the only thing to change. The world itself had become distorted; colors and objects ate at each other, stirring the once gorgeous scene into an ugly brown that soon faded to black.  
  
He struggled to see the light, realizing that his eyes were closed and his mouth kept delivering disgruntled groans and muffled screams. He tried to move and when he finally rolled to his side, a sharp. Bleeding pain cut into his cheek.  
  
He wanted to feel the pain pour from his mouth, but the spell he was under now would now allow him to do so. He could only remain in the dark until the light found its way to him.  
  
~~~  
  
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Awake.  
  
He was awake. Or was he just dreaming of being awake? Maybe it was a dream within a dream..dreaming awake? A daydream of sorts? Being awake, yet having a dream. "Dream.."Johnny muttered,, moving his hand to the pained cheek. There was a wet warmth there, and it stung the moment his fingers touched the throbbing skin. Lazily, he pulled his own hand in front of his eyes, admiring the substance that adorned his fingertips. "Blood." he whispered.  
  
He was still unaware of where he was and what he was doing, but was not so much clueless that he couldn't understand that it was pain that crept up arm as well. It seemed to be floating upwards from where he lay on the floor, yet heavy. From the distance, a pair of cold, emotionless eyes stared into his own, mocking him the only way a mere object would know how.  
  
"Good morning, Johnny-baby," Meat giggled evilly.  
  
Johnny made a disgusted face and quickly tossed the lifeless creature aside with a grunt. Slowly he pushed himself up in his hands and grabbed his head. "Oh, fuck. S-sleep. I hate sleeping."  
  
Of to his side, Reverend Meat took a moment to collect himself, then continued to laugh in the merry way he usually managed. "Johnny, its me, Devi D. Pucker up for the figment of your dreams, the obsession of day and night, the madness driving you far more insane than ever thought possible."  
  
Johnny growled. So that was what happened. All along in his dream Devi was no more than a simple figment, and in his interaction with reality as he slept, that figment had turned into Meat, and the little fuck just loved to play with Johnny's aching heart. That fucking porcelain figure lying on the wood of his floor. To think he had almost kissed that vile thing.  
  
"Shut up."  
  
Groaning, he got to his feet and tapped at the cut decorating his face. It had started to clot, but he was curious as to how he attained it. Scanning the floor for any kind of sharp, discarded item, his gaze fell upon a piece of glass, slightly stained with blood,. He tapped the cut again, wondering how he could've been so careless to leave it around and then actually have that certain idiocy he despised so much to fall asleep next to it.  
  
Failing to see any good it would do to dwell on it now, he pushed it form his mind and shook his head,.  
  
That dream.over and over again, each time his exhaustion managed to get the best of him every now and then. And each time, he seemed a little more out of place. There were certain things he would always say and do that were so not him..yet.he shook his head again. How could he be sure of who he truly was if he couldn't even identify himself in a stupid dream?  
  
And then of course there was Devi, always surfacing in these dreams. Even when he was awake, images of her remained forever in his head. And every time, it was the same . The dream was always the same, more or less.  
  
Sighing, he walked towards the window, where a wonderful, clear night sky introduced itself to him again, as it did every night, as though it not recognizing him. Still dark; it couldn't have been any later than three am, he decided.  
  
The stars danced up in the heavens, but all Johnny's thoughts were of his lost love; Devi D. always haunting his sleep. He promised her on that tape that he would give he the gift of forgetting her altogether, leaving her free of him. But thought deep inside, she always resurfaced.  
  
Thoughts continued to scrape his mind, but he ignored them for the irrelevant ooze he believed them to be, and ran a finger against his cut; to feel a sting, to feel pain, to know that he could still feel.he looked moved his finger away, the temptation gone and glanced upwards again. That seemed to be his repetitive mission tonight.  
  
Sighing, he bit his lip. It was his fault she didn't want him anymore. That fear..that fucking fear of losing happiness to some stupid paranoia that didn't even exist and she had run off in fear. He was stupid for that.so very stupid.  
  
Staring lazily into the sky, he wondered, hoping that someone would hear his lonely thoughts; wondering if at that very moment, under the same sky, looking at the same stars, they were both thinking of each other.  
  
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A/N: That's just a one shot, a little-something to-occupy-myself-fic since I'm currently having a nasty bit of writer's block with my other story, If Only I Could Dream . Happens a lot. I don't really do mushy all that well, whish is why I really like the fact that it turned out to be a dream and not some reality-based Johnny/Devi mushy lovey kissy story. I don't care if it doesn't make sense or if things don't seem the way they should to anyone. I wrote it, deal with it. Ta da. ta da..blah blah.vomit. 


End file.
